Step 8: Remove the tape.

Step 9: And voila!

You have a great new conversation piece for your home or patio.

We've been collecting bottle caps for what seems like forever anticipating this table. After moving our collection with us to 4 different homes in 3 different states, we now have enough caps for this table plus a few matching stools. What makes this project different than a simple mosaic project is that we covered the table with a thick resin, creating a look quite similar to the tables at your favorite pub.

Step 1: Collect bottle caps.

-Buy microbrews based on how cool the caps are, not how good the beer is.

-Get your friends to help you collect.

-When traveling overseas, buy beer instead of souvenirs.

Step 2: Find the table.

You can do this on any sized surface. I've seen huge bars covered in pennies or old photos, but unless you want to deal with storing wheelbarrows of bottle caps, a bistro-sized or small end table is good for starters.

We used a Noresund IKEA table purchased in the As Is area at our local IKEA. I believe it is now discontinued. Sorry.

Step 3: Lay out your design.

We started out with a random design, featuring just one bottle cap from every kind we had in our cap stash. This left room for some repeats, so we arranged a pattern around the circular shape of the table.

Do not use any oiled or waxed surfaces for this. While it might help a little bit with the barrier not sticking - the sides it covered is very likely to become tacky/soft/sticky. If any surface doesn't harden properly during the rather lengthy curing process, it will not harden - ever.

Some resins are easier to "fix" than others, when this has already happened. Polyester for one, is very hard. This is good, because that means not only can you grind/sand away the tacky surface - but more importantly - you can sand and polish it to a "clear glass" surface afterwards. Epoxy for instance, is too soft for this.

Remedying this is often a lengthy and tedious piece of work. But given the fact this is a "hands-on" surface, it needs to be fairly solid.

I did a larger coffee table. But, there are a few suggestions though..... Make sure that your barrier around the table very sturdy, also make sure you have plenty of superglue handy, and finally make sure when you calculate how much resin you need to account for the 1/4" height of the bottle caps. Other than that, I love my table, can't wait to make more of them!

When you were adhering the caps to the wood, did you fill the caps with anything, like hot glue? Other online tutorials suggest this step because they feared the air in the caps would cause bubbles in resin while it cured or bumps in the surface over time. My table is 80"x40" and I have over 2000 caps so I would like to avoid this step to reduce the weight (by about 13 pounds). If you didn't fill the caps, did you have any of these problems. Thanks

My wife and I actually met at one of those cap covered pub tables you talked about at a local bar. We've been doing the collecting for that last 5 years to make our own. We actually have had enough caps and the table to use for quite a while but the main thing holding me back has been my inexperience in using resin and not wanting to mess it up. The main thing I wondered about was how to retain the resin on the top. Now I feel confident enough to actually do it. I might actually make it for her as a Christmas gift. Thanks!

I'm on my 2nd attempt at my beer cap table. Caps are in place and I am ready to pour the resin (my first error was using poly and not resin). My question is if the resin will hold up outdoors as mine is a patio table. The resin I have bought is Parks Super Glaze ultra gloss epoxy but it doesn't really specify if it is for outdoor use. Think it will work?

"Bottle cap furniture" , I told my wife, " I want to quit my job and start making bottle cap furniture". She just rolls her eyes. I love it. I'm on my 5 th project. I've made a bar in the shape of California, 2 end tables similar to this one, concrete table top and the barn door that separates my man cave from the rest of the house. I wish I would have taken more pics and did a tutorial of the bar and the door.

I would pour rice or sand into the object you are going to work on before you start and measure how much volume it holds to see what amount of resin you will need and then keep a silicone mold or two handy on the side to accept the leftover resin if you have any.

I originally thought of grouting the table, so I bought glue with that in mind. When I decided to use the polymer resin, I just didn't really rethink the glue. Since I hadn't used this resin before, my main concerns were (obviously) to keep the caps in place and not have a lot of glue show around the edges of the bottle caps.

If you can keep the hot glue "strings" under control and minimize the amount of excess around the caps, I think hot glue would work just fine for this project. Thanks for the suggestion.

I tried edging a mirror in bottlecaps, and when doing that i tried hot glue and superglue. THe hot glue popped right off pretty much right after adhering to the mirror for a minute. (not sure if there would be a different result if it wasn't sticking to glass). Can't wait to try this in table form and use the resin... im hoping for a funky and cool piece like that!!! A+ job americangypsi!!!!!

Cool table. In college I made a 5' x 7' beer pong table covered with caps. Needless to say I was working on a much bigger surface. Had a friend that could do the covering of the caps with fiberglass resin for free (which was great), but we used polyurethane to do the initial gluing down of the caps (aside from the sliding issue, caps will try to float... so let me reiterate what the poster said... don't skip this!).

The benefit to polyurethane is that it's cheap, you can just spread some on in a not too thin layer with a brush and move the caps as necessary, it dries in a reasonable amount of time, and you don't have to worry as much about mess. Polyurethane is the same thing gorilla glue is made out of, so it will definitely hold. If you're worried about the slightly yellow color (e.g., if your background color is white or light wood), use polycrylic instead, just make sure that it is all covered and can't get any moisture on it (it discolors).

I wanted to say thank you. I wanted to pour a work table top and I succeeded after following your directions. My foil stuck a little but it is the kind of resin I used. I took it off with a knife no problem. Thanks again. I really appreciated your clear directions.

Do you think that this would work with pieces of candy? like Sweettarts and bottlecaps... i have a lot and i dont think i will eat them. I think the resin would keep it together and not discolor or anything.... any thoughts???

If you're still looking for the resin compound, you can check out dick blick. They sell art supplies online. Here's a link to the resin I use: http://www.dickblick.com/products/castincraft-clear-polyester-casting-resin/